


Where We Belong

by sniperct



Series: Alternate Encounters [15]
Category: Tomb Raider & Related Fandoms, Tomb Raider (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Post-Canon Fix-It, reconnecting, shadow of the tomb raider spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 13:24:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16041347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sniperct/pseuds/sniperct
Summary: As Lara settles into the Manor, she is feeling introspective. But how long is too long before it's too late to reconnect?





	Where We Belong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Asynca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asynca/gifts).



Something inside me had died that day atop the pyramid. A sacrifice I was more than willing to have made.

It was still a strange feeling, the missing weight that had been in my chest for so long. I still sometimes looked around the Manor, expecting to see the ghosts that had haunted me for so long. But it was just me and Winston, and the guilt that would always remain.

Jonah was still off enjoying his time with Abby, and I had, earlier, taken a call from Etzli on the satellite phone I’d left behind.

After months of helping him rebuild and restore his city, I’d wanted to make sure he could reach me. Maybe I wanted to be able to hear his voice. I’ll forever feel the guilt of Unuratu’s death, just as I did with every one who’d died for me, and I suppose keeping an eye on her son and people was the least I could do.

I’d finished the letter I’d been writing Jonah hours ago, and my tea had cooled, but I sipped it anyway as I stared out the window at the setting sun.

I’d only been back a few weeks, but I was starting to feel that itch again. This need to go _somewhere_ , see things that had been lost to time and history. 

And there’d been something else on my mind, too. A phone call, long overdue, missed calls and a voicemail I hadn’t the courage to listen to. 

I wondered if it was too late. At what point did missing a call turn into a snowball effect of ‘should I return it or did I miss the chance to?’

In a way, I was a coward and I felt that nothing I could do could have made up for that. I might have said ‘we’d lost touch’ but what I really meant was that I’d abandoned my best friend. Everything that had happened had been my fault, and while I know longer felt all that weight, those particular circumstances continued to dog me.

I turned, picking up my phone and unlocking it. What time was it in Tokyo? Close to noon, if I remembered my time conversion.

Taking a breath, I dialed Sam’s number from memory. It started to ring.

In the hallway I heard music and the lyrics _bang bang, I start to fly_. Dumbly, I look down at my phone, then at the slightly ajar door of my fath--my office.

The door swung open slowly, and Sam stood there sheepishly holding her phone. I hung up and the music stopped, and stared. I realized my mouth was hanging open and I closed it.

“Hey.” Her hair was long, down past her shoulders and she ran her fingers through it nervously. “Of course you choose _now_ to call me back.”

“I. Uhm. I’ve been busy.”

“Jonah told me. Something about stopping the apocalypse.” Sam closed the door behind her, the click of the latch almost too loud to me.

I was clearly less prepared for this than I thought I would be as I briefly contemplated jumping out the window. “It was more like restoring the ...okay, it was stopping the apocalypse.”

Sam looked at me and I’m sure the pain in her eyes was a reflection of my own. She walked towards the desk, stepping around it and before I could stop myself I folded her into my arms.

“Sam, I’m so sorry.”

She looked up at me as her face blurred in my vision. “I’m sorry too.”

It was a start. A new start, like the rest of my life with my parents finally buried and myself no longer in Trinity’s crosshairs. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I was willing to try, if Sam was too.

Snuggling against me, she turned her head and spotted the map on my computer screen. “So where are you headed to next?”

“I was still trying to decide,” I admitted. “But if you’re here, then here is where I want to be. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

She tilted her head, and then gave me a wide bright smile, the shadows in her eyes receding. “Good answer.”


End file.
